


Like Clay In One’s Hands

by idrilsdarkwritings (idrilhadhafang)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Because it’s me, Dark, Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon, Inspired by a Trailer, Inspired by the Episode 9 Trailer, Luke Skywalker Is Not an Asshole, Manipulative Sheev Palpatine, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Minor Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Multi, Possession, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Revenge, Sith Alchemy, Sort Of, The Dark Side of the Force, in that KOTOR lore is used
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-14 15:45:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18951139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilsdarkwritings
Summary: Palpatine has always found a way. This is no exception.





	Like Clay In One’s Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Dark Fic 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: The idea of Sith alchemy came from the first KOTOR game and what they did with Ajunta Pall. I figured I’d explain Palpatine’s possible and otherwise inexplicable return somehow.

The fall into the reactor shaft should have killed him.  
  
Palpatine knows this, inherently. He knows that he should have been dead when the pitiful Rebels managed to blow up the Death Star. It should have been the end for him. Sith, after all, do not get Force Ghosts.  
  
There are exceptions, of course.  
  
***  
  
It was Plagueis who had introduced him to the concept of Sith alchemy. Sith alchemy, which could preserve the spirit from beyond the Force itself. “It comes at a price,” Plagueis had told him.  
  
And Palpatine, ever perceptive, had said, “Doesn’t everything?”  
  
So he had learned. He had learned about preserving himself throughout the years. Throughout his training. Perhaps in the end, it is no surprise that he’s ultimately ended up outside the Force, so to speak. No surprise that he is here at all.  
  
***  
  
Taking on the persona of Snoke is relatively easy. One of the benefits of being a spirit is that to those in the spirit realm, the body is nothing more than a plaything of whoever wishes to mold it to their own ends. Snoke has always been there, a rival to Palpatine’s power, and Palpatine doesn’t take kindly to some arrogant upstart thinking that he can somehow usurp him.  
  
Of course Snoke screams and protests as Palpatine takes hold of his body. It’s to be expected. He made a grave mistake in thinking he could summon Palpatine to help his backwater garbage heap of a planet, Milara. He is a fool. Patriotism is for younglings, after all.  
  
And in time, Snoke’s free will is overridden. He forgets himself, his birth name — Aldric — what it was like to have his own mind, his own body. He forgets, and Palpatine fills in the blanks.  
  
***  
  
The most important thing is getting revenge on Vader’s family.  
  
Vader betrayed him, all thanks to sentiment that was, really, for younglings as well. And it’s because of him that Palpatine is weaker. Without Snoke’s body, he is nothing more than a wisp of mist. Without a host, he is lost.  
  
Palpatine knows now what his old Master — idiot though he was — meant when he said that Sith alchemy had a price.  
  
Of course Han and Leia have a child now. A son. Ben. Palpatine has felt him in the womb, and he knows that the child is as much his creation as Anakin was. He can feel the remnants of Snoke’s memory, his identity, horrified at the idea of exploiting a child. Weak. Completely weak. He’s a lemming lined up for the water, cattle for the kill.  
  
And of course Ben Solo is named for the simpleton Ben Kenobi. Predictable.  
  
When he reaches out to Ben first, he can feel a youngling huddled in the dark while his parents argue and scream. Of course. Three years old, black hair, nothing like his father or mother, but instead his paternal grandmother, Jaina.  
  
_Is all well?_  
  
The child responds with curiosity, distracted from his crying for a moment.  
  
Palpatine has always been affable when he has to be.  
  
***  
  
He doesn’t feel empathy or affection for people. Not truly. There is a gap there that is more like a chasm. His vessel had too much empathy for others, too much naive love for his homeplanet. It was his downfall.  
  
But he can feign empathy and affection for Ben Solo. The boy is like the mirror image of his grandfather; they even look somewhat alike, though Ben’s hair is black where Anakin’s was dark blond. Little bird, Palpatine cannot help but call him. In a way, he is the snake chasing after the bird with a broken wing, a snake in the garden.  
  
_He won’t belong to you,_ Snoke says from within him.  
  
_He’ll come to love me. To serve me. To call me ‘Father’ instead of that thief._  
  
It will be the ultimate revenge.  
  
***  
  
The tipping point, naturally, is when Luke discovers who’s inside Ben’s head. Ben is eighteen then, and by then, Palpatine knows him as intimately as the back of his hand.  
  
He knows that Ben has been in love with Poe Dameron since before knowing what love was. He knows that Ben loves calligraphy. He knows that Ben is powerful, but a faulty fighter. They’ll have to fix that, of course.  
  
But not too much. Ben needs to stay like his grandfather before him — docile, submissive, only willing to serve the cause.  
  
He doesn’t need to goad Luke Skywalker into trying to kill his nephew. Luke, over time, has become beyond what Palpatine ever dreamed of. More than he could imagine. He’s become vicious, cruel, dogmatic and self-righteously greedy, chasing after knowledge of the Jedi Order and being disappointed every time.  
  
He’s learned from his mistake of goading Skywalker in the throne room. Skywalker was blinded by his love for his father as well as his desire to be a good Jedi. Here, he has no such limitations.  
  
So Palpatine lies in wait. Presents carnage and death to Luke Skywalker...and waits for him to make his move.  
  
Luke, of course, is too much of a coward. He withdraws, ashamed, the moment that he draws his lightsaber. The damage is done nonetheless.  
  
Ben wakes, and he is scared, more than scared. From there, the situation dissolves into chaos.  
  
Just as planned.  
  
***  
  
Palpatine-in-Snoke’s-body intercepts Ben’s shuttle just when he’s about to leave for the Unknown Regions. Probably thinking he’ll become a fugitive, or a smuggler. But they’re not done yet. Not by a long road.  
  
Ben has yet to be trained, after all. Properly.  
  
Even as Ben walks into the throne room, defiant, Palpatine knows that it won’t last. From the windows that are Snoke’s eyes, he can see Ben — scared but defiant nonetheless. Hurting from leaving Poe Dameron behind. The perfect clay to mold into a capable apprentice, far more than even his grandfather ever was.  
  
To finish what Palpatine started. What Vader started, before sentiment defeated him. Ben may defy him now, but in time, he will be his child, in more ways than one.  
  
It is unavoidable, after all. It is destiny, the Force, whatever you wish to call it. Ben is his, like Vader before him.  
  
“Welcome, Ben Solo,” he says. “I’ve been expecting you.”


End file.
